About Beebo

Beebo is a char­ac­ter in a series of children’s books. We have three: The House that Beebo Built (ISBN: 0224010913, Beebo and the Fizzi­men (ISBN: 0224010921) and Beebo and the Funny Machine (ISBN: 022401093X). Each book starts with Beebo, his buddy Mop, and Mop’s hamster Hector ar­riv­ing in an un­fa­mil­iar town. They work hard and well, whilst keeping mostly to themselves. In his spare time Beebo builds won­der­ful things out of junk—an enor­mous pipe organ, a me­chan­i­cal fire-breathing dragon, an au­to­matic fence-builder.

By about the middle of each book, Beebo and Mop become happy, if not rich … at which point trouble strikes: in the first book their ram­shackle mansion finds itself in the middle of a apart­ment con­struc­tion zone; in the second, Beebo wakes up one day to find his face on bill­boards all over town, his stolen image being used to sell soft-drink; in the third Beebo and Mop are ex­pelled from an angry and name­less au­thor­i­tar­ian prin­ci­pal­ity for having no visa, no iden­tity card, and no passport.

In each book, Beebo and Mop are un­kindly treated by the state. We believe the theme is: the state is bad. We should all thank Philippe Fix, the author, for taking on this thank­less task: it’s an im­por­tant lesson for the pre-10s to learn, and it’s not one typ­i­cally doled out by children’s books. (The third book is par­tic­u­larly bleak—it ends with Beebo and Mop growing smaller and smaller as they descend into earth.) One wonders what hap­pened to Mr. Fix himself. A long and happy life, one hopes.